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The lack of big bucks is definitely what turns me away from non-profit from the start. I don't need the $1M/year job as a partner in 10 years. I do need something that will make enough money that I don't end up losing money because I went to law school.

That being said, I'm sure there are some non-profits out there that actually pay good money to certain employees. Credit Unions and other non-profits that are basically run as for-profit businesses probably fall into this category.

I'm a legal assistant for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. It's based in DC, but I work with the Director of Litigation in Dallas. You might have seen us in recent news about KFC (we're sueing them), 7 UP Natural (we want to sue them), and Frito-Lay/Olestra (we just recently got them to put additional labelling about their chips containing olestra).

I guess the reasons I love it are not law-related at all....but I love the variety of research that I get to do - from the effects of advertising on children to HFCS and trans fat. I also like the feeling that the work I am doing is making big corporations like Kelloggs and Cadbury Schweppes change their evil big business ways to improve their products or at least helping consumers make informed decisions about what they are buying/eating.

I'm not sure how big of a salary my boss has but CSPI is a multi-million dollar non-profit so he can't be doing that bad.

Yeah, I looked up non-profit and salary in Google after this, and it appears that two years ago there was a big stink about how many non-profits overpay their executives. Non-profit definitely doesn't mean that somebody isn't earning a profit.

20 Hours of work per week. It doesn't apply during the summer break, and I hadn't though to wonder about the winter break till now, but I can't imagine anyone making a stink about it, since you shouldn't have anything to study during that time anyway.

The ABA rule (I think it's rule 4.03) about working hours for law students is as follows (I used to work in the Payroll Office at Syracuse Law during my undergrad days): If school is in session and you are a full time student you may not work more than 20 hours during any pay period. If school is on break such as a summer, winter break and even spring break you are free to turn in as many hours as you want or that your office will allow you to.

From what I hear, as a summer associate, they don't press you to work the long hours. Is this because you are considered an hourly employee, so they would have to pay you extra for any work over 40 hours/week? Or are you considered a short-term salaried employee who can work as many hours as they allow you?

I know at the place I work now (Engineering job) the interns are hourly employees, so we send them home at 40 hours and refuse to pay more except in rare circumstances. If we didn't make this very clear and enforce it, we'd have to pay overtime.

Even at the podunk law schools, a starting assistant law professor will make in the neighborhood of $85K. At bigger-name schools, profs start in the 90s. And at the really big-name schools, they'll likely start around $100K.

Advancing in rank and with tenure, you'll approach $150K. And chaired profs -- particularly named chairs -- are making $200K and more.

It's not as much as the big firms pay -- you have to consider that most (all?) profs could have had their pick of careers in big firms, where salaries are starting over $100K and quickly move toward $200K, especially when you include bonuses, etc. And I read somewhere that law firm partners average $500K/yr nationwide.

But you gotta love the academic lifestyle, which in my book easily makes up for the lower salary. And coming from the English dept, where profs start at about $45K and top out (at most midsize universities) around $80K, I'd take a law prof job that started at $90K in a heartbeat!!

If I make the honor roll, I want to work for Holland & Hart in Denver, Boulder or Cheyenne. If I am an average student, I will go for any job that offers more than $60,000. If I can't get a job by the time I pass the bar, I will go for my LLM. This UT?? OH CRAP!!

I guess UT does publicize a little bit about what they do for people hoping to get into Academics. It isn't only for UT grads, though, and is made open to all law school graduates of any age and experience. They list the pay as $60K for basically a pre-professorship position.

I guess UT does publicize a little bit about what they do for people hoping to get into Academics. It isn't only for UT grads, though, and is made open to all law school graduates of any age and experience. They list the pay as $60K for basically a pre-professorship position.

This is like a post-graduate fellowship position offered by UT at UT. A number of the top law schools have these sorts of positions. I'm not sure how useful they are, for getting into academia. Someone mentioned adjunct teaching earlier -- this is NOT a recommended way into academia, as adjuncts rarely get hired on in permanent, tenure-track positions. But I'm sure this fellowship-type thing is better than adjuncting.

The traditional route to a law prof job is (step 1) graduate top of your class & law review, etc., (step 2) prestigious clerkship, (step 3) prestigious firm job for 2-3 years, (step 4) get hired in tenure-track position. Things are changing, though, and it's becoming more and more common/popular/attractive for candidates to have a PhD in some cognate/relevant field (e.g., philosophy, English, sociology, psychology, history, etc.). I don't know how the PhD fits in, though -- if it is powerful enough to replace the clerkship and firm job, for example, making a tenure-track appointment possible right out of graduation (with PhD and JD in hand), or if it is simply icing on the cake (the cake being the traditional route to a TT position).

Also, publications are more and more in demand -- it used to be that you didn't have to have any in order to get the gig, so long as you produced afterward; but now, candidates are commonly expected to have a few publications already, before they can really compete for the gig.